


Heartbeats

by JCapasso



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24146500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: A different perspective on the events of the end of Season 4. One where Eve is better for Lucifer than she seems and has good reasons for everything she did.
Relationships: Eve/Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

Lucifer was here for this couples counseling thing to get his relationship ended and here the doctor and Eve were chatting up like old friends and he was getting more than a little impatient. “Can we just get on with this already?”

“Right. Yes. Of course,” Linda said wiping the smile off her face and getting back into work mode. It was just so nice chatting with someone who saw Lucifer’s issues as clearly as she did. “Well let’s start from the beginning. Tell me how this relationship started.” She’d heard plenty from Lucifer on the matter, but she wanted to get Eve’s perspective. 

“Well when I first got here, I didn’t think it was gonna happen. I mean, almost as soon as he saw me he called me a car to send me to a hotel, but the some guy tried to kill him and kidnap me and by the time we got all that settled he brought me back to his place and I just never left,” Eve said with a smile. 

“I see. And you don’t think that you being present all the time might have pushed things too far too fast?” Linda asked curiously, having heard from Lucifer how he had basically been dragged into the relationship. 

Eve shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go, or money to get there, or even ID to get a job and money. He knew that if he wanted me to go then he would have to help me out, but he never brought it up, so I figured we were good. That’s why I threw the first ‘boyfriend’ word out there to make sure we were on the same page. He didn’t disagree or make any moves to get to leave still, so I guess it just…fell into place,” she said looking at him lovingly. 

“Interesting,” Linda said thoughtfully. That was a very different perspective than Lucifer’s. Pretty much the exact opposite. “So then do you feel like /you/ might have been forced into the relationship?” Lucifer looked back and forth between them in shock. He hadn’t even considered it that way. He supposed that he did somewhat force her into staying with him and thinking back she did say the boyfriend thing in a questioning manner. He never meant to force her into anything though, and his residual bitterness over her shanghaiing him into it completely evaporated. 

“Maybe,” Eve told her. “But I wanted it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. I mean, I did come all the way from heaven for him,” she laughed. 

“And why was that?” Linda asked. “Were you able to watch things and something in particular made you come?” 

“You could say that,” Eve said with a wince, knowing that Lucifer wasn’t going to like this much, but talking these things out was why they were here. “I didn’t realize that he was on Earth again until a woman came up who knew him. Charlotte was her name. I started greeting all the new arrivals forever ago to help kill the boredom. That’s when I started paying attention to what was going on down here.”

“I see. And did you just miss him or was there more than that?” 

Lucifer looked at her curious for that answer as well. “Well…I could see how much abuse he was taking from his partner and how much it was hurting him…”

“I do not take abuse,” Lucifer said offended. 

“Hang on, Lucifer. Let her finish and then you’ll have your say. That’s how this works,” Linda told him, wanting to hear the rest of this too. “Go on. How do you think he was being abused?” 

Lucifer huffed and crossed his arms, leaning away from Eve as he listened to her explanation. “Well there’s the little everyday things of course. Always telling him off for stupid things like not being still or making unrelated comments, or even making every case about himself when everyone knows that’s how Lucifer gets into people’s heads. It’s like everything he does she just tears him down. And don’t even get me started on the trying to kill him and send him back to Hell thing…”

“And then she risked her life to save mine in the almost explosion,” Lucifer pointed out. 

Linda tilted her head thoughtfully. She had never looked at things that way, but Eve had a point. She thought back over the conversations she’d had with both Chloe and Lucifer about each other and she could definitely see it building over time to a breaking point. She’d noticed Lucifer becoming less stable and more insecure as time went on, but hadn’t realized why until just now. “Abusers almost always show remorse after the worst incidents and usually make some big gesture to prove it,” she had to point out. 

“The detective wouldn’t do that,” Lucifer snapped. “You should know that, doctor. Tell her.” 

“I don’t know that I can do that, Lucifer,” Linda told him. “I hadn’t considered it from that perspective before, but it is rather textbook. She criticizes and controls you in order to mold you into something that better fits her own wants and needs. Abuse isn’t just physical, though her attempt to send you back to Hell was just that.” 

“I’m not going to listen to this,” Lucifer said getting up and walking out, Eve rushing after him apologetically. They drove home in silence and he dropped her off before heading back to the precinct. 

Over the next few days, Lucifer pulled away more and more, and she kept trying to follow, but it never helped and finally things came to a head after she had a conversation with Maze. She heard him come home and steeled herself for what she needed to do. 

Lucifer realized by the time the case was over, that there was only one way to handle this and he had been trying to take the coward’s way out, but no more. He noticed Eve on the balcony when he got home and he headed out to talk to her. He took a deep breath to steady himself before he said, “We need to talk. I’ve been thinking…”

She cut him off. “Actually, I have something I want to say first.”

Lucifer sighed as he turned to face her. “Go on.”

“Tonight, a friend helped me realize that…I’m great. No…You know what? I’m awesome, and I deserve to be treated well.” Just because she pointed out the abuse that he was taking didn’t give him the right to turn around and pile it on her. 

“You’re right,” Lucifer admitted, feeling even more guilty about the way he’d been treating her. “And you’re so much more than awesome, Eve. You have a light inside of you that brightens the world and a smile so infectious that it captures the heart of anyone lucky enough to see it. And…uh…I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you lately. You don’t deserve that.”

Eve smiled happily at the proof that he really did love her. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

When she moved towards him to pull him into a hug, Lucifer stepped back, holding out his hands to stop her. “Which is why,” he continued. “I should have just said this straight away. I want…to break up with you.” He struggled to keep his emotions under wraps. This was the hardest conversation he’d ever had in his life, but it was also the most necessary.

“I don’t…understand,” Eve said heartbroken. “I’ve been…trying so hard to…to please you. I’ve made friends with all your friends. I’ve…”

“You see, that’s just it,” Lucifer cut her off almost desperately. “You shouldn’t have to change for anyone. And neither should I. Eve I have been trying so hard to make you happy too. Trying to be someone I’m not. Or at least…someone I don’t want to be anymore, and you deserve to be with someone who wants what you want.”

“I want to be with you,” Eve said argumentatively.

“And I don’t like who I am with you!” Lucifer almost yelled. She just wasn’t getting it. She had to make it all so much harder. He reined himself in and said softer, “I don’t.” 

“Then change it,” she told him matter-of-factly. “You don’t have to change for anyone either, Lucifer, and I’m sorry if you ever felt like you did for me. I admit that I may have been wrong in trying to do the things you liked so long ago and not seeing that you may have changed, but you never said otherwise. You never told me that you didn’t like those things anymore or that you wanted something different. You never used to have a problem with saying what you wanted before.”

“I tried. You said that the detective was influencing me and that I was trying to be something I wasn’t,” Lucifer told her. 

“Because you didn’t say you didn’t want to. You said that you couldn’t. You also talked about how exhilarating it was before that. If you had clearly said that you didn’t want to or that you didn’t like how you felt, I would have listened. I just didn’t want you to try and change for someone else when you’re already perfect however you are,” she told him. “If you want to punish okay. If not then that’s okay too.”

“And the constant orgies and parties?” Lucifer asked skeptically. 

“Again, that’s what you used to like and you never said otherwise. To be honest, being the perfect hostess and keeping the party going all the time was exhausting,” she admitted. 

“And what about what you wanted then?” Lucifer asked, realizing just how much she had done for his wants. 

“What I wanted more than anything else was for you to not lose yourself in someone else’s expectations and if that meant pushing you the other way then I did. Maybe it wasn’t the best way, and I’m so sorry if I hurt you, Luc, but I wasn’t trying to. We can talk this out and find our way again. We don’t have to walk away,” she told him, stepping close and putting her hands on his chest. 

He let her for a moment, and even reached up and placed his hands over hers, before he caught himself and turned away. “No. We can’t. It’s not that simple, Eve. You don’t understand.” 

“Then help me understand, Luc. Please,” she begged. 

“The prophecy…”

“Since when do you let a stupid prophecy control you like this. You know that most of them are garbage.”

“Since this one is already coming true,” Lucifer snapped. “When the devil walks the Earth and finds his first love…and here we are. The fact that you’re here at all proves that this one is real. How could that have possibly been predicted otherwise? Then there’s this,” he said spreading his demonic wings behind him. “Look at this!” 

“And you think this is my fault somehow?” Eve asked. “You said yourself that you hadn’t looked at your wings since your devil face came back. How do you know they weren’t like this all along? Either way, by your definition, the damage is already done, so what’s the point in walking away now?” 

“Because I have to at least try and stop it, Eve. I can’t just…do nothing,” he told her, turning away. “My decision is final. I’ll call a car to take you to the Waldorf and I’ll let Pierre know you’re coming.” 

Eve swallowed heavily as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it,” she said heartbrokenly as she turned to leave. “I’ll wait downstairs for the car.” 

Lucifer had already used his phone to schedule the car and was texting Pierre as he listened to her footsteps walk away and his heart was breaking along with hers. It was the only way though. He couldn’t allow evil to be released into the world. It would be against everything he stood for. Even more so if that evil was himself. He just couldn’t do it. 

He poured himself another drink and watched in the app as the car picked her up. He was still trying to put himself back together when his other problem walked in the door. When he told her that he broke up with Eve, she said, “Well…you know…I’m sure if it’s what you wanted then it’s all for the best.” 

“It is what I wanted,” he told her. “She was in love with the person I used to be.” He still at least partially believed that. It was all he had to hold onto right now anyway. 

“I understand,” Chloe said sympathetically. “You’ve changed. You’ve become a better man, Lucifer.”

Just like that, he realized that Linda and Eve had been right. She took him to the soup kitchen. Got onto him about his drinking. Tried to get him to be more charitable, like he didn’t already throw so much money at random people for the smallest reason. She’d even told him that he didn’t have to be who he was. That he could change. She’d all but told him that he had to change and that she couldn’t accept him as is. “You see, that’s just it, detective. Eve sees me in a different way, but so do you. That’s what makes you so…so special. The fact that you see me that way,” he said trying to steel himself for breaking his second heart of the night. Third if he counted his own. “But I don’t like how that makes me feel either,” he finished as he got up and walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

The revelation that he hated himself surprised Lucifer, but not as much as he would have expected before all this mess started. Before he realized what the detective had been doing to him and before he had walked away from Eve. He tried to pretend that it was a good thing. That figuring it out meant that it would go away now, but apparently his entire body decided to betray him by reacting physically to the knowledge. He was turning into the monster he felt like and at the worst possible time too. 

Thankfully they managed to get the killer before his transformation was complete and he was able to hide away. Of course the detective couldn’t leave it at that though. She just had to come back to try and ‘fix’ him. “It’s too late,” he told her as he stepped out of his room to prove it. “They won’t go back in. This…is who I am now,” he said bitterly watching her step back in fear. “I know why I hate myself. Because everything I touch I ruin! I /hate/ that I am poison for anyone who dares to care about me. Even you,” he finished as he turned and went back to his room. 

“Lucifer, this isn’t about me. I’m okay,” Chloe told him as she followed him, forcing back her fear. “I haven’t crumbled into a million pieces. I’m still here, and I’m fine.”

“If I turn around will you be fine or will you look away in horror,” he asked spitefully, though at her or himself he didn’t know. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him. 

“Of course it does, Detective,” he snapped knowing that her response was an answer in itself. He wanted to know that there was something left to salvage there. That he didn’t lose his closest friend and Eve at the same time. 

“No, it doesn’t. Because this isn’t about me. This is about you,” she told him. “I’m not going to let you use me as an excuse for you to avoid what is behind all of this. You always talk about how much you hate being blamed for humanity’s sins. You know, the devil made me do it. And I think I know why you hate it so much. Because deep down you blame yourself just as much, if not more. You have to stop taking responsibility for things you can’t control. Lucifer…you need to forgive yourself.” 

Lucifer resisted the urge to scoff. Of course that’s why she thought this was happening. Why would he blame himself for humanity’s sins? He never made anyone do anything. No, what he blamed himself for was breaking Eve’s heart. And his own. That was something he couldn’t forgive himself for. “I can’t,” he told her. 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know how to,” he told her. He didn’t deserve to. He’d broken the only person he’d ever truly loved and the only other person he’d had a chance to love had betrayed him. And all of it was for nothing. The evil was released anyway. “I don’t even know where to begin, but,” he added as he turned around. 

“But what?”

“But I want to,” he finished and he could feel his demonic form fading even as he spoke. He could still feel it inside him though, wanting to come back out. He didn’t tell her that and let her think she’d helped him. Once she was gone, he plopped down on his couch with a drink. He missed Eve. He remembered her response to seeing his devil face for the first time. ‘You’re amazing’ she’d said before she kissed him. She didn’t recoil in terror. She didn’t run away and find a priest to help kill him. She loved him. Even like that. She told him that he was perfect just the way he was. Whoever he wanted to be. 

That stupid prophecy was the root of all this and it seemed that his attempts to prevent it were only making it worse, because of course the stupid thing was a self-fulfilling prophecy. He got up and headed for the elevator. He had to fix this. It couldn’t be too late. He jumped in his car and drove as fast as he could for the Waldorf and rushed up to his suite. Where Eve would be. He knocked on the door incessantly until it opened and he barely got a good look at her bloodshot eyes and the teartracks on her cheeks before he swept her up in a searing kiss.

Eve was surprised to see him and even more surprised when he kissed her like that. She definitely wasn’t complaining though as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back desperately. “What was that?” she asked breathlessly when he broke for air. 

“I was a fool, Eve, and I’ve treated you horribly. Not just by breaking up with you, but even before that. You were right. I should have just talked to you and told you what I wanted. What I needed. I shouldn’t have spent so much time ignoring you and pushing you away. I’m sorry. Please tell me it’s not too late for us?” he asked hopefully. 

Eve smiled brightly. “It’s never too late, Luc,” she said reaching her hand to his cheek. “Not for you.” 

He kissed her again before asking, “Come home?” 

“Absolutely,” she said happily. “And then we can talk about how this is going to work moving forward.” 

Lucifer nodded. “I can drink to that. And will,” he joked, picking her up in a bridal carry and heading for the door. 

Once they got home, Lucifer cooked her a nice dinner as they talked. They both enjoyed the orgies and parties, but it was too much for every day so they decided to set one weekend a month aside for it and would party down in Lux whenever they felt like it in between. Lucifer also realized that he couldn’t continue working two jobs and still be able to give her the attention she deserved, so he agreed to hire someone to do most of the work for the club and he would just enjoy the benefits and work for the PD. He promised not to let the detective get to him and to talk to her and/or Linda whenever he started feeling insecure thanks to her treatment. She agreed to spend less time worrying about him and cultivate her own interests while he was busy working so he didn’t feel guilty leaving her alone all day. By the time they went to bed, they both felt much more comfortable about where they were and where they were going. 

They also decided to do couple’s counseling for real, which Linda gladly agreed to though it would have to wait a month or two while she was on maternity leave, but told them if they had any problems in the meantime they were free to call for help working them out. Lucifer hadn’t gotten around to telling Chloe about him and Eve being back together before she dropped the bombshell that she loved him and Lucifer quickly replied, “No, you don’t.” 

“What do you…” 

“You love who you want me to be. Not who I am,” Lucifer told her. “Eve loves me for who I am and anyone I might want to become, and I finally saw that.”

“But the prophecy…”

“Was self-fulfilling,” Lucifer told her. “I felt like a monster for hurting someone who had done nothing but love me and so I became that monster. As soon as I realized that, and fixed it, everything was fine again. Nothing to worry about. Eve and I are real, detective, and we’re going to stay that way.” He refrained from telling her that she had blown her chance. There was no need to rub salt in the wound. Not when he intended to continue working with her. 

Unfortunately, it seemed that she couldn’t stomach working with him after that and he got shuffled to a new partner. He shot down the idea of working with detective douche. He treated him even worse than the detective, so he ended partnering with Pettis. Someone he only knew in passing. She was a good detective though and not nearly as critical of everything he did and they worked well together. Eve was happy that he wasn’t working with Chloe anymore and the fact that she didn’t mind him working with Pettis instead proved that it wasn’t a jealousy thing. She just hated the way Chloe treated him. Working with someone who treated him with respect just highlighted the fact that Eve had been right about her all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all I got. My first Eveningstar. What did you guys think? Love it? Hate it?


End file.
